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Student leaders and experts have questioned the government’s plans for a university closure before Christmas, arguing it would violate students’ legal rights and arrive too late to prevent further outbreaks.
Michelle Donelan, England’s minister for universities, will meet with university leaders to discuss how the government intends to deliver on Boris Johnson’s promise that all students who wish can go home at Christmas to be with their families.
The meeting comes as Durham University became the sixth university in England with more than 1,000 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the course. Durham revealed that it had recorded more than 960 confirmed cases in the past seven days.
The government’s Christmas proposals, as revealed in The Guardian, would require universities in England to finish teaching in person on December 8 and switch to online enrollment, with students expected to remain on campus until December 22. December.
The proposals were described as “impracticable” by the Union of Universities and Colleges, while the president of the National Union of Students (NUS), Larissa Kennedy, doubted that the government’s legal powers would allow it to limit students to campus.
“We are questioning whether there are legal precedents for doing this and treating students differently from the rest of the population,” Kennedy said in an interview with LBC.
“The students are simply not the homogeneous group that the government seems to think there is. There are students of all ages, students with parents and caregivers, and what would this mean for students with jobs they can’t do remotely? It just doesn’t seem like this hasn’t been thought of. “
Kennedy said the government’s decision to ignore advice from its Sage think tank, which advised that universities should teach online whenever possible, to reduce streaming, meant it had to come up with a workable exit plan.
Dr Ellen Brooks-Pollock, an epidemic modeler at the University of Bristol who is part of the government’s pandemic influenza science group, said a two-week lockdown with online teaching only before Christmas may be too late.
“Our analysis suggests that reducing face-to-face teaching to essential teaching only has the impact of slowing the rate of spread and preventing more widespread outbreaks,” Brooks-Pollock told the BBC.
“However, it must happen early in the outbreak, because if the infection is already widespread, having this quiet period at the end of the period is unlikely to prevent outbreaks within residences.
“Two weeks may be enough for students who live in smaller households, who live with two or three other people, but in these residences where there are really many people living together, it could cause an outbreak in those residences.
“And if there are already widespread infections, many of which are not seen, two weeks would not be enough at the end of the period – it is essentially too late.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said: “If students travel home, we must ensure that they do so in a way that minimizes the risks of spreading the virus, and the date that universities must stop face-to-face teaching will be an important part. this. We will provide details on this shortly. “
As the number of cases continues to rise on campus, including more than 900 confirmed infections at the University of Leeds, staff are considering industrial action to defend online teaching.
